ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)
1. Chip Kelly’s Eagles offense was impressive on Monday night. The Redskins’ defense looked bewildered, inept, and slow, particularly in the first half. The Eagles’ defense looked vulnerable in the second half. Two questions: Can the offensive players maintain that pace and their health each week? Will the opponents figure out the system and stop the offense? It was certainly a good opening night.
2. Everyone (Cincinnati, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland) is tied for first place in the AFC North. They all LOST!!
3. I wonder what the ratings will be for Rafael Nadal’s impressive US Open victory on Monday night. Are football fans, also, tennis fans? Or an entirely different audience?
4. Central Florida takes on Penn State this week. The Knights are pushing their major sports to improve enough to play anybody. They played before 20,000 people last week. It will be over 100,000 this week.
5. Speaking of crowds, the Notre Dame-Michigan game on Saturday produced the largest crowd in college football history – 115,109. The previous high was in 2011 when (you guessed it) Notre Dame played at Michigan – 114,804. If they played each other every week at Michigan, they would draw approximately 1,265,000 fans a season!
6. More numbers – The Catasauqua football team is averaging 51 points a game and 414 total yards of offense. They scored 62 points last week.
NFL PICKS FOR THIS WEEK (11-5- Week One: 69%)
New England
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Houston
Indianapolis
Buffalo
Atlanta
Green Bay
Dallas
Chicago
New Orleans
Arizona
Oakland
Denver
San Francisco
Cincinnati
